I don't have a Series 3 yet (drool!), but I am an RCN (Boston) customer. So just like the people who started threads for Cox and Comcast, I figured it would be good to put an RCN thread in place for RCN customers who have purchased Series 3s to talk about their experiences with attempting to get CableCards installed and whether or not your local RCN system has multistream cards.

I called this morning to set up a cablecard installation. The customer support person seemed to know what I was asking for and scheduled it right away. She gave me the obligatory no VOD, etc, etc (I am actually still keeping the DVR box for the time being) and then told me the charge was $1.50 per month per card. There was no installation fee associated with the process (she said it was waived). I'm just happy that I didn't have to explain to the person what a Series3 actually is and why I would need 2 cablecards...all in all, a smooth process (so far My installation wont be until next week, but I'll keep you all posted.

My CC order with 3-day Fedex unexpectedly made it across the country overnight, leaving me with a Series 3 and not even an install appointment scheduled! But that's another story...

RCN quoted me $1.50/month for the card, $14.95/card for installation, and "graciously" (my quote, not theirs) offered to waive the $49.95 "truck roll" fee. The real bummer is that I had kind of justified the cost of the Series 3 + service with the assumption that I could cancel the cable box rental and DVR service. However, it seems that I'm grandfathered into an old promotion that would actually make it more expensive to return the box!

Lastly, the TiVo arrived last week and I couldn't get an install appointment scheduled until next week!! Ouch. It's partially my fault, as I couldn't take any appointment for the second half of this week.

Has anybody tried going to the local RCN office to pick up a card? Mine is in San Mateo (on my San Francisco -> Palo Alto commute), so even though they told me it's not possible, I'm thinking of trying...

Based on what I'm hearing about new Comcast HD channels, however, it may just be time to switch. If only I could get the same high speed internet service through Comcast....

Just finished my RCN (Chevy Chase, MD) install... One card in my new Sony TV, 2 in the S3 and everything went well. $1.50 monthly per card, $14.95 install for each. Cards were immediately recognized and tuned to HD channels. Tech had not done a TiVo install before and seemed to enjoy trying something new.

I've been waiting to hear from someone in Chicago. I'm considering switching over from Comcast.

Chicago, IL: just installed two CableCards. literally took 5 minutes; the technician called the operator to activate the cards while i was inserting them and literally a minute later we were testing the channels. he had never seen an S3 before but it didn't seem to be a problem at all.

Got my S3 yesterday. Called RCN - the next slot they have to install the cablecards is OCTOBER 12! I can't believe I have to wait that long. But they said they're $1.50 per month per card, plus $15 to install both.

Chicago, IL: just installed two CableCards. literally took 5 minutes; the technician called the operator to activate the cards while i was inserting them and literally a minute later we were testing the channels. he had never seen an S3 before but it didn't seem to be a problem at all.

well, apparently it wasn't that perfect. later i found out that i'm not getting channels 540(CSNHD), 541(ESPNHD), and 542(DiscoveryHD). also channels 543(HDNet) and 544(HDNet Movies) have no sound. same problem with both CableCards on both tuners. all other digital and HD channels are fine.

tried calling RCN but they couldn't find any problems on their side (although the lady i spoke to didn't sound like she knew much about what she was doing). they are going to send a tech out to troubleshoot this but i doubt it's going to help.

can anyone with S3 and RCN in Chicago confirm that they are getting those channels?

Finally got things working here with RCN in Boston. The cable guy came by last week, installed the cards and left (I wasn't home at the time but my fiance was). I came home to find that 1 CC worked and the other was only getting sporadic channels. It turns out they didnt have the second CC registered to my account, so it wasn't authorized. A few phone calls later to RCN and they straightened it right out. I have to admit that they have been very easy to deal with. My second CC is now recognized and I'm getting all the HD and premiums I subscribe to...well done, RCN!

I have RCN in Boston (Arlington). The install went fine (30 min). The cards are $1.50 each a month and they waived the installation fee of $14.99. It took about 10 days to get an appointment. I'm guessing the popularity of the S3 will increase demand for the CableCards. Most people with just a TV probably don't mind the box that much.

The guy came with 2 cable cards today;He showed up around 10:30am, he left at 1:15pm and I have one kind-of-working tuner.

One cable card was DOA; he had a very hard time getting the live one to authorize.

First it just would not do anything .. "Acquiring channel lineup" (I believe it said.. it was burning into the screen for a VERY long time). After 3 or 4 calls back to the office they zapped the card twice, and finally after unplugging and re-plugging the TiVo, got basic cable channels. The Auth said: MISSING_PROGRAM_REKEY

By the time we had basic TV, and the local HD stations showing up, I asked him to check the premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc). No deal.. just a grey screen.

He asked them to zap it again... Then his cellphone battery gave up (he had been using the phone actively for a few hours at that point).

Anyway, he had asked them to zap the card again, and at first the TiVo went back into the blue screen with the swirling ball,and I paniced a bit, but the channels did show up... but still not HBOHD...

Now the Cable card says: Auth: Zero_Key

Any idea what that means?

I get to go through it all again tomorrow when they show up with yet another cable card, and that will try again with the authorization.

Does anybody know if the cable company needs a code from the Tivo "cable card" screen in order to authorize things like HBOHD?

Had RCN here today to install the 2 Cablecards. Installer kept saying that he had never done an S3 before. He would not read the instruction sheet from TiVo, and started to put in both cards at the same time. I stopped him, and made him do it one at a time. I d/n know why, but this was a big deal to him. Something about getting both cards hit at the same time was better for him.

He would not wait for set-up, but I confirmed that both cards were getting signals.

One nice thing: he said to run the setup, and he would call in an hour to see if everything was working. I did a new guided setup (without any freeze-up) and checked both tuners and some HD channels. Everything seems to be there. One hour later, he called to see if I needed him to come back! Luckily, everything seems OK. I hope RCN is able to stay in business, because I think they are better than Comcast.

Had my install today (RCN Boston). Took about an hour. Tech hadn't seen an S3 before and seemed a little "outdated" (he was probably 50-55 years old). We inserted the first card - and he called the CO to hit the card.. nothing except the "updating channel info", but no channels. After the first one didn't seem to be updating or working after about 10 minutes, he put the second one in so they could "hit" them both, To make a long story short, and three calls to the CO later to hit the cards, it eventually started working for both cards. Except the HD Tier wasn't coming in, and as he was on hold the fourth call, they started working on their own. We did get a 161-4 error a few times.

I am now also getting pay channels I wasn't paying for before (showtime, starz, etc), but I'm sure they'll fix that shortly. It was pretty smooth, and luckily the operators on the headend knew what to twiddle to get the cards working in the Tivo without too much hassle.

edit: I forgot to add, in the middle of initializing the first card, the S3 just randomly rebooted without warning. But it restarted fine and we continued with the install.

Hank, If you have the HD or digital tier with RCN, I believe those movie channels are included. I just stumbled across them a few months ago, and called RCN - I thought they would charge me. Turns out that, except for all of the HBO channels, RCN includes full movie channels in the price. Go to the RCN web page, and you can find your tier. I then printed the channels for setting up the S3. It was four or five pages.

The RCN cable guy came round yesterday and installed both cards. The first one worked fins straight away. The second cable card took about 5 minutes to kick in. I then had him check channel 542 and it worked only on cable card 1. He then spoke to someone on the phone and about 10 minutes later I had all channels.

When you get your's installed make sure that you check 542 on both cablecards.

This was very painless. A big thanks for recomending to check the 542 channel.

Glad to see there are RCN users. I think I reported my success in here or another forum, but my local tech is cool (Chicago); he came by, let me install them (which I wanted to do), and we did have 1 dead card, so he came back on his own time the next day with 3 brand new cards just in case! He also gave me his cell number and told me that whenever I need an appointment and RCN says it will be a week, etc, to take the date they say, call him, and he'll get me much sooner. He's done some wiring for me before and is excellent. I've been very happy with them lately; I have their triple package. Great company!

The RCN cable guy came round yesterday and installed both cards. The first one worked fins straight away. The second cable card took about 5 minutes to kick in. I then had him check channel 542 and it worked only on cable card 1. He then spoke to someone on the phone and about 10 minutes later I had all channels.

When you get your's installed make sure that you check 542 on both cablecards.

This was very painless. A big thanks for recomending to check the 542 channel.

RCN, Boston (Newton), MA. Original earliest appointment was Oct 2, which was about two weeks from when I scheduled the appointment. On the morning of the appointment they called to say they were out of CableCards, so I waited until today, Oct 9 to get the installation.

Cost is about $1.50/mo per card; I had them remove the HD converter box I had before, which had cost $9.95/mo. However, it seems like I lost a little HD programming (Discovery HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies) and may have gained some programming (5 Star Max, Outer MAX, Showtime) although I may have had these before and not known :-).

Cable setup was painless; the cards were recognized by the box upon installation; as soon as they were activated, they came to life. The installer had never done a Series 3 before and was clearly relieved when it "just worked". I was, too.

One HDMI cable between the TiVo and my A/V Receiver, one network cable, one power cord, one coax cable. And one less hot box (the old Motorola 5200). Pretty cool, so far.

My RCN install went well, but took a while. The RCN tech was nice, polite, and stayed through the entire process. The problem was very slow recognition of the cabale cards. We followed instructions perfectly. Eventually we ended up getting basic channels, but for some reason we had to call the RCN provisioning team to get them to "hit" the cards again to get my premium channels working. My only complaint was that the guy could have been in and out in 15minutes or less had he just called them sooner. He kept thinking he could get it fixed without calling. Turns out a 30 second call and things were up and running within 2 minutes. Just goes to show... know your limits, and know when to reach out for support!

I have S3, 3 cable cards, 2 for S3 one for my Pioneer 1130HD. They all work great, never used VOD or PPV so I could care less that those services do not work with CC1 spec.

All in all very happy with RCN. Converted from Verizon Telephone, and DirecTV to RCN for everything, Phone, TV, Broadband. Saving a bundle (over $75/mo) and very pleased with RCN's customer service!

Saving a bundle (over $75/mo) and very pleased with RCN's customer service!

ditto.

RCN have been great to work with from start to finish. Always friendly on the phone (sound like they actually want your business). Card install was a bit tricky. We never read the instructions first time and tried to hit all 4 cards at once. Definately had one bad card 161-1 error. Kept getting 161-4 errors until we stopped took a break and started again from scratch. Learnt some interesting info such as when the control center tells the on-site tech that the cards had cleared after being hit it means absolutely nothing. I had mistakenly patched through the wrong coax. So none of the setup screens actually tell you anything about the network you're attached to. All they know about is the cablecard.

The other S3 with the good coax worked on one card and was stubborn about coming up on the second one. After several hits though it did finally work. I'm not sure if it isn't the software the control center is using to hit the cards. Looked quite flakey to me.

PQ is excellent now and apart from minor annoyances (non HD channels are not very good at all), I'm very pleased. And yes with bundled Internet etc it's actually quite a bit cheaper than D* was.

Well I just got my series 3 cablecards installed so I figured I'd share my experience too. I have RCN here in Chicago and was also quoted $1.50 per card and $15 for the install. I don't recall them mentioning a truck roll free so hopefully that was waived.

Anyway it took two weeks to get an appointment for an installation done. I was kind of surprised but I'm guessing a lot of people were jumping ship as soon as they announced they would be wiping our Motorola DVRs. The tech showed up and I brought him down to the home theater. He had asked where the cablecards were going and I pointed to the Tivo, he then asked me where the other one was going and I explained to him that they took two cards. So I definitely got the impression he had not seen one before. I then proceeded to hand him the cablecard installer's instructions and he read through it. It sounded like he was kind of impressed with how Tivo had it put together. I don't have a plasma or anything so I don't know how their instructions usually are.

We popped in Card #1 and it seemed to work great. We were able to pull up channels right away on the Test Channels after the MIMI came up. So we popped in the next card expecting it to go just as easily and it couldn't get any channels. I think it even said 'NO CHANNELS' or something like that at the top of the screen. We then popped out both cards and repeated the process with them in opposite spots. Again that second card did not work even when in slot 1. The first card worked just fine in slot 2. So he called it into dispatch and asked them to 'send a hit' to the cards. After waiting a few minutes and not getting any farther we popped the cards back in their original slot and were right back where we started.

All of this took about 45 min to an hour. The installer was very nice and very polite, and explained that he didn't have any other cards with him but he would be able to get me one and return that evening (I had a late appointment so this would be less than 2-3 hours). Then he gave me his cell number and asked me to call him if it started working while he was gone, and said he had a feeling it would. At that point I told him ok, but really felt like he was just giving me a line.

So after he left I played with the test channels a little more. A few channels like Discover HD and some of my premium HD channels weren't coming in. But I decided to go ahead and rerun the guided setup like the instructions recommended. That of course took about 30 minutes to finish processing all of the information even though it was done over the internet. Near the end of the setup I got that error 161-4 error message that Tivo says you can ignore if it happens during the installation. However that error was only happening on the bad card which i left in the tivo while running the guided setup. I had been tempted to remove it as soon as the cable guy left so it wouldn't screw anything up with the setup.

Anyway after the setup was done I started playing with the tivo and realized that everything seemed to be working. I went back into the cablecard setup to 'test channels' on both cards just to make sure, and it was all working perfectly. I am fairly certain it was not the guided setup that fixed it, so maybe RCN sent another hit to the cards or something. So I called him back and let him know everything was working great and that he didn't need to come back.

I am getting all of my HD channels including the premium ones. Haven't really tried the SD ones, but I don't really watch them anyhow. No sound problems that I've encountered so far either.

I called RCN today to schedule my cable card appointment. They asked me if I had purchased a Series 3 Tivo and I told them yes. I asked him if they had a bunch of people calling and he said not many. He didn't try to push their product on me.